Newly Certified Recreation Diver looking for some advice to plan an upcoming Honeymoon Diving trip.

[hilljo88]

My 2 cents. All of these have great diving opporunities and any one would be a great choice.

St.Lucia: Ti Kaye and Anse Chastenet are both wonderful, romantic resorts,perfect for honeymooners, but somewhat isolated.

St.Croix; great reef and pier dives. relatively easy to drive around the island

Grand Cayman: wall dives, great easy shore dives. lots of restaurant choices.

Cozumel: relatively inexpensive. some shore diving, but features drift dives. some outstanding, inexpensive restaurants. Fun, active island with easy ferry to and from Playa del Carmen for more entertainment.

Curacao: shore and boat dives. If you stay on west coast you can walk along the beach to active bars and good restaurants Some outstanding restaurants in town. Can be more expensive.
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[KathyV]

As Kathy stated - Many second dives start around 50-60' after the first deeper dive is done. You can either do the deeper stuff or sit on the boat since they're two tank dives.
Then you've never been to Curacao and dove off their 50+ sandy beach entry dive sites - some with dive docks. I agree about Bonaire - climbing over the iron shore just to get to the water can be a challenge.
Exactly - so why are your hyping Cobalt Coast and the Caymans in general where that frequently happens during the fall vs. the ABC;s where it almost never does?

I will conced the theft issue on Bonaire - it's certainly still a problem. Not so much on Curacao as about 2/3'rds of the dive sites have on-site concessions/dive shops - one even offered to watch our vehicles in the parking lot they could see from the front counter. Also Curacao Tourism has security at some of the more popular public sites like Porto Mari. We were warned about the remote Gnip sites - but then we were warned on Maui also.

I also said that "many wall dives around Grand Cayman start at around 50 or 60 feet, with good corals and animal life near the top of the wall." And some of them start even shallower.

I've done lots of boat dives on Grand Cayman and I have never seen anyone stuck on the boat because the first dive was too deep - it's never been an issue. In the Turks and Caicos I've seen some divers choose to sit out the first dive because it's deeper than they prefer but not in Cayman. I suppose that it could happen, if the first dive was one of the rare deeper sites, like Ghost Mountain.

I have been to Curacao and shore dived and enjoyed it very much, but I still find a ladder easier to use than diving from the beach or shore - but that's my preference. One time I fell during a beach exit (on Bonaire) and put my hand down on a sea urchin and that dampened my enthusiasm for beach diving somewhat.

The car rental agencies on Curacao told us to leave the door unlocked and the windows rolled down and nothing of value in the car; but we haven't been there in a while so I am glad to hear that theft is no longer an issue.

I only mentioned the Clearly Cayman resorts because the OP expressed an interest in Nitrox Certification and they are offering a free Nitrox and free Nitrox Certification special in the Fall. Also because they are all-inclusive and budget is an important issue for the OP. Shore diving is no longer such an important factor at Cobalt Coast because they are now offering packages with both 2 and 3 boat dives per day, even though the shore diving is still available, weather permitting. Personally, I don't care for an all-inclusive on Grand Cayman because there are too many choices for good places to eat and grocery stores with abundant offerings, but an AI can help with the budget.

I've made suggestions for several other (non-Cayman) destinations to the OP as have other SB members. My concerns about Zika are just that - my concerns; but I know several young women of child-bearing age that are worried about visiting destinations that have Zika warnings; that's why I mentioned that Bermuda, Cayman, and Hawaii may be attractive destinations to folks that may be thinking of starting a family soon.

On the other hand, Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao are less likely to be hit by a hurricane in the Fall, so that is also an important consideration.

Wherever they decide to go, I wish them the best of luck!

 

[drrich2]

Since St. Croix was mentioned, some info. compiled on it -
St. Croix Research Report Aug. 2017 - St. Croix Research Report Aug. 2017

Richard.

 

[KathyV]

Something to consider as new divers - Cayman diving is DEEP. Most of the walls start around 100'+ and in some case the moorings are at about 50-60' and chosen in barren locations so as not to damage the reef.So hanging around the mooring is boring.

Standard dive profiles are 1st dive to 100' on a wall/pinnacle, 2nd dive shallower.

So if you're not willing to go deep - and as new divers burn thru your air quickly - they'll assign a DM to shepherd you around shallow. But at sites like Big Tunnels that mostly means hanging in blue water waiting for something to pass by - which often happens...

I was surprised by your characterization of Grand Cayman's dive sites as being so deep and statement that the walls start at 100'+ feet.

We've done at least 8 trips to the Caymans, including an Aggressor liveaboard trip and several 2 week trips, and I've never been struck by the depth of the dives as compared to other Caribbean locations. But I could be faulty in my memory, and in more recent years we have mostly done shore dives on Grand Cayman while we also spend time doing "vacation stuff" (and maybe a few boat dives, too) and then we travel to one of the sister islands of Brac or Little to spend the second week diving.

I wondered "have I forgotten how deep the walls really are around GC?" I checked my log books and there are a lot of shallow and medium depth dives and some in the 100 foot range, but I only record the max depth in my log book - and my memory is that many sites offered a range of good diving at multiple depths.

So I also reviewed the iDive site that @drrich2 referenced in his Cayman Aggressor trip report (see link below) and confirmed my impression that there are very many dive sites around GC and most of them offer options in the shallow to mid-depth range. There are some deeper dives but they are less common.

I didn't review all the sites - there's too many - but I randomly selected quite a few of them - some that I remember diving and others that were unfamiliar. I looked at sites on the north, south, west, and east sides of the islands and concluded that "I do not agree with your assertion that GC diving is too deep to be comfortable or valuable for newer divers" in comparison to other popular Caribbean and Central American dive destinations
Best Dive Sites Grand Cayman - iDive

But I could be mistaken and I'd really like to hear the opinions of others. I would be less likely to recommend GC to newer divers if the diving may be too deep. There are some GC dive professionals on SB like @FindingMenno and @caydiver, as well as other divers that are frequent visitors or property owners on GC, like @EastEndDiver, @mi000ke, @Trailboss123 and many others. So I would be interested to also hear their opinions about GC as a dive destination for newer divers, especially because we seem to have different definitions of "too deep".

However, if someone is looking for great shallow dives, then Little Cayman is still the best option among the Cayman Islands IMO - but there's not much else to do on LC besides eat, sleep, dive, relax, and enjoy nature; and there is an extra (short) flight on a small plane to get to LC for a land-based trip.

 

[caydiver]

If you dive with a DM or Instructor you can go deeper than your "certification" level allows which you cannot/should not do with a buddy who does not have the suggestioned qualifications. Many newbies are confused when they hear the first dive (guided) is 100ft. However, it is not a problem here because the viz and conditions are usually so totally user friendly. DiverSteve is totally correct. The second dive is shallower and usually around 50 ft. Most ops that offer 2Ts do the guided deep followed by a buddy team shallow. Most ops always have a DM in the water for the second dive as well if people want to just chill and tag along. You might consider doing you Advanced Course on your vacation. There is very little (if any classwork -- I wasn't PADI so it might not be exactly the same) and more than likely it will just be the two of you and the instructor which is like having a private DM. Many ops include gear for free with courses so it can work out cheaper to boot. We always did courses on holiday and the only ones that I can remember that included book work to any extent was Nitrox and Rescue. Once you get to DM it is more of a time commitment, but if you love it and want to just get better and better and it is a great way to go. Congratulations and hope you have a wonderful honeymoon.
Just a comment about St. Lucia. We thought it was really beautiful and although it was not supposed to be a dive holiday, it morphed into one. There was nothing else to do where we were staying (it was the old Hilton Jealousie property over by the Pitons). We only went off property once for dinner as the roads were in bad shape. I did not like the smell of sulphur in the area, but thought the trip overall was great. The water taxi into Castries was disheartening to see kids diving into the water for coins (which tourists were quite happily throwing). So staying on property and diving made the holiday.

 

[Johnoly]

....I wondered "have I forgotten how deep the walls really are around GC?"....

They are basic open water air divers that have only dove in a quarry. Recommending them for their 1st time in the salt water to jump off a boat 100' deep that they don't even have certs for is not a good idea. Give them a hard sand bottom they can't wander deeper to but still full of fish & corals. Lets not freak them out on their very first ocean dive so they quit the sport. Remember YOUR 1st ocean dives and how nervous most are? Small baby steps, then get them hooked on the advanced stuff as their skills develop.

 

[KathyV]

They are basic open water air divers that have only dove in a quarry. Recommending them for their 1st time in the salt water to jump off a boat 100' deep that they don't even have certs for is not a good idea. Give them a hard sand bottom they can't wander deeper to but still full of fish & corals. Lets not freak them out on their very first ocean dive so they quit the sport. Remember YOUR 1st ocean dives and how nervous most are? Small baby steps, then get them hooked on the advanced stuff as their skills develop.

I agree, I wasn't recommending a 100 foot dive for newbies, I was recommending wall dives with variable depths so that they could stay near the top of the wall if preferred. I was surprised by the statement that the walls start at 100 feet, that has not been my usual experience.

 

[mi000ke]

I do almost all of my diving on Grand Cayman. While the first dives are usually "deep wall", they almost always start at about 40-50 ft and then proceed to the wall. At that point you can either stay at the top of the wall or on top of the reef, which continues to be a shallow (60 ft or so) dive, or go down the wall to whatever you are comfortable with (although the ops usually ask you to stay to 100'). The DMs often compromise and hang at about 75 ft. When I first started diving there, before I had my AOW, I was not comfortable going to 100' so I just stayed at the top, and there were always others doing the same (or if no one wanted to buddy up shallow, I would sling a pony on the deep dives). Now, when diving with my daughter who was recently OW certified, we buddy up and stay at the top of the reef, and see plenty of marine life. The return profile is usually at the top of the reef anyway, which again is shallow and lots to see. Actually I have always preferred shallow reef dives to deep wall dives. Also, I somewhat disagree with DiverSteve, in that there is usually a lot of interesting stuff to see while puttering around the anchor line finishing up your dive.